[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]
It was only a few minutes of silence before she exhaled quietly, burying her face against his neck.
“I have to let you go.”
Matt stiffened. She straightened, looking at him and smiling a slight, pained smile.
“Keeping you here isn’t fair,” she whispered softly. “We both know that. You should be here because you want to be here, not because I made you come. Not because I’m making you stay.”
His heart was in his throat. “What if I want to stay?”
I’ve completely lost my mind.
Then again, maybe I’ve lost it in a good way.
No one had ever needed or wanted him like this before—not his sister, not any of his previous girlfriends, no one.
Do I want to stay because I feel like I’m needed, or do I want to stay because I actually feel something?
No. He cared about her. He cared about her and it had nothing to do with what he could remember of someone else’s life—it had everything to do with the way she’d treated him the past few weeks and what he’d seen of her in that time.
Her needing him was incidental.
She smiled weakly, tears gathering in her eyes. “That would make me really happy. This house has been way too lonely. I always hoped it would be a real home. It never really has been.”
“How long have you lived here?” Matt asked, reaching up to wipe away her gathering tears.
I hate seeing her cry.
“Fifteen years,” she whispered. “I built it myself. Designed everything. The basement…the basement came later. It came after I—after some things happened and I realized that I felt safer underground than in the room that I’d worked so hard to make just perfect.”
“I’d wondered,” Matt said, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her tightly against him. “I’ve been all through that house and I wasn’t sure—I’d hoped it had been your home, but I wasn’t sure.”
She nodded against his chest, tucking herself into a ball in his arms. Matt rested his chin against her head and held her.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Matt closed his eyes. “I think I love you, too.”
Good, honest feeling there.
At some point, he should think about letting people know he’s OK but that can happen later.
I missed this on Friday. That means that I get to read two in a row today. 🙂